It seems that the Starship Discovery has finally found its captain. According to Deadline, Jason Isaacs has officially been cast as Captain Lorca, the captain of the USS Discovery in CBS upcoming series Star Trek: Discovery.
The series gained some buzz last year because of the unique plan CBS has for distribution. They will be premiering the pilot episode on their broadcast television channel, and then have the rest of the season premiere exclusively on their OTT subscription service CBS All Access. Star Trek: Discovery marks the first series developed exclusively for CBS All Access.
Although Isaacs will play the captain, Soneque Martin-Green (The Walking Dead) will be the main protagonist, as she takes on the role of Rainsford, a lieutenant comander aboard the USS Discovery. They will be joined by Michelle Yeoh, Doug Jones, James Frain, Anthony Rapp, and Maulik Pancholy. The series is said to take place about a decade before the events of the original 1960s series. The first season will consist of 13 episodes, and will feature new characters and storylines, all while keeping with the spirit of past television series and films. Despite many fan films and television series in the last decade, this will be the first official Star Trek television series since Star Trek: Enterprise ended in 2005.
Star Trek: Discovery ran into a slow-down last year when creator Bryan Fuller voluntarily stepped down as showrunner in October, citing his involvement with other projects as the main reason he desired to take an executive producer role instead. Writers Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts took over there after as co-showrunners. Fuller has previously worked on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager in the 1990s, so CBS assumed he would remain invested, but it was reported by Variety in December that he was ‘no longer involved’ at all in the series. Instead, he is focusing his efforts on upcoming Starz series American Gods and other projects.
Although Star Trek: Discovery was originally planning for a May release, given the departure of Fuller, as well as trouble finding the right actors to portray the roles, CBS has pushed the premiere of the series back to late summer or fall of this year. And to ensure international audiences are able to join in the reboot, the series will also be distributed concurrently by CBS Studios International on Netflix in 188 countries.
Jason Isaacs is most known by general audiences for portraying Lucius Malfoy, father of Draco Malfoy, in the Harry Potter films. He most recently could be seen in Gore Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness, Netflix mystery drama series The OA, as well as the comedy The Death of Stalin which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last month. Look for him later this year in crime-mystery film London Fields alongside Amber Heard, Cara Delevingne, Jaimie Alexander, Theo James, and Billy Bob Thornton.
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